Page:Weird Tales volume 11 number 02.pdf/42

Rh and late fall. Rest o’ the time nothin’ happens. It’s best not to go out o’ doors on them nights. Them ruins is terrible, they be haunted places and it be wise not to go anywhere close to them, sir. I warned Mr. Gilbert, him that was killed, you know, but he wouldn’t pay no attention to me and they got him.”

“Who are they?” asked Jarvais, sensing that he was getting to the crux of the matter at last.

“They be shadows, sir; shadows that ain’t got no bodies, so I hear. I ain’t seen them yet, praise God.”

Shortly after this, Jarvais, tiring of the now commonplace conversation, excused himself, and leaving the circle around the fire, went to his room. Switching on the light he noticed a package lying on his table; it was the book he had ordered from London, entitled Pre-Druidistic Ruins in England. Seating himself in a chair beside the shaded reading-light, he was soon deeply engrossed in his purchase. As he read on and on, he stopped with a jerk, and then re-read more carefully the following two paragraphs:

As he finished reading, Jarvais remembered the slip of paper he had found on the moor early that morning —that tom scrap that ended so suddenly: “the altar is-.” What could the rest of the sentence be? What was lost by his not having the remaining fragment? Undoubtedly Gilbert had found the answer to the puzzle and the answer to the great secret of the moor—the secret that had eluded all the other students and archeologists. Why, here in the best preserved of all these ruins, was there no moon altar? Even in the most ravaged of the others, the altar was conspicuous, but here none could be found.

At last Jarvais arose and stretched himself. He was cramped and tired. He looked at his watch. It was after 2. He had sat engrossed in his reading longer than he had realized.

ULLING on a sweater, Jarvais opened his casements and stepped upon the balcony. Again it was moonlight, for this was the season of the moon, when bright nights were common and the people of the village kept behind barred doors. The moor was white, cold, and apparently tenantless. The night was very still. Not even the breath of a breeze stirred the trees, and the shadows of the buildings and the shrubbery were solid black patches of darkness on the silver lawn. Over the moor, far in the distance, were the ruins, clear-cut